


Origami Frogs

by FictionalWorldsAreExquisite



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Origami, Tired Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21724105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionalWorldsAreExquisite/pseuds/FictionalWorldsAreExquisite
Summary: It's late, Peter can't fall asleep and Tony learns how to make an origami frog with him in the process of trying to help him sleep.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 88





	Origami Frogs

**Author's Note:**

> gooooooooood morning! I FINALLY got around to editing this story last night while I was headache-free, it feels like it's been sitting in my docs for so long (it's really only been a few weeks) and every day I'm like man the story is finished you JUST need to edit it lindsey HURRY UP. I've got hhh a couple more things I need to edit sitting my drive I think, idk, I'll have to see what I've got waiting for me today. Buuut more things coming probably. In good time.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

It was around one in the morning when Tony walked out of his lab, telling FRIDAY to shut everything down as the door locked behind him and he stepped into the elevator, FRIDAY automatically taking him up to the penthouse. 

He’d been trying to get a better sleeping schedule but sometimes he just really lost track of time but c’mon, 1am really wasn’t that bad. Still, with the kid around, he did try his best to be in bed by midnight so that he’d be a little more coherent and pleasant to be around the next day.

He’d sent Peter off to bed around ten simply because the kid looked like he was falling asleep at his bench. Normally, midnight was the cutoff time, when he shut everything down and they both headed off to their respective rooms, if they were still working then. But clearly Peter was exhausted tonight because he hadn’t even argued with him, normally he’d protest about it being way too early to go to bed.

The elevator came to a stop at the penthouse floor and he stepped out, lights automatically turning on in front of him and off behind him as he moved from room to room, ending up in the kitchen to put his (collection of) cups no longer filled with coffee into the sink for cleaning tomorrow and he grabbed a glass of water before he headed to his room.

He moved quietly as he padded down the hallway, not wanting to wake the kid who slept a few doors down from his room. Peter’s room was pretty soundproof but the door let a little sound in because the kid wasn’t comfortable with complete silence and he knew too much noise right outside his door would wake him up if he was in a light sleep. Kid definitely needed his sleep too.

Except, when he passed Peter’s room, he paused and looked back at the door, seeing light coming out from under it. Maybe Peter left a light on? Still, FRIDAY normally turned them off automatically once you fell asleep, but the kid could’ve asked to have it left on. Or...maybe he was still awake. But it’d been three hours since he’d been sent off to bed so he should be asleep by now, especially with how tired he’d been looking.

Curiosity getting the better of him, he quietly padded back and grabbed the doorknob, twisting it almost silently and pushing the door in. The room light was on, the bed was empty, blankets a mess, and as he opened the door further, he saw Peter at his desk, light on there too, fiddling with some paper.

“Hi, Mr Stark.” His voice sounded croaky and rough, kind of like after you’d just woken up but he doubted Peter had slept. He didn’t turn to face him either.

“What’s going on, kid?” This wasn’t like the time when he’d caught the kid still on his phone scrolling god knows what at five in the morning when he’d woken up needing a drink. Something was up.

“Can’t sleep.”

Tony walked closer slowly, “alright. What’s keeping you awake?” He’d helped before on these occasions, he just had to know what was up.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Not nightmares? Or anxiety? He’d found Peter awake late at night or early in the morning because of both, on several separate occasions. The kid didn’t always like talking about it but he’d at least admit what was going on even if he wouldn’t say anything more. So...what was this? 

He came to a stop beside Peter who was still holding onto some paper which, now that he was closer, looked partly folded like he was in the middle of making something.

“I just can’t fall asleep. I keep...I mean, it happened last night too. That’s why I was so tired today. I just want to sleep but I can’t and I feel horrible just laying there for hours.” Peter looked up at him, eyes not quite meeting his and Tony observed the dried tear tracks littering Peter’s face, red eyes and obvious exhaustion clinging to every feature. 

His heart broke a little at how drained he looked and he pulled Peter into an awkward sort of hug that didn’t really work with Peter sitting and Tony standing, but the kid relaxed into it nevertheless. He knew the feeling but if he was being honest, he normally just went and worked in his lab and passed out at a weird time or pushed through the next day without sleep. Still, he wasn’t about to recommend that to Peter. 

His eyes drifted behind Peter to the desk he’d been facing before and he quietly asked, “want to tell me what you were doing?” It looked a bit like the start of a paper airplane from what he remembered of how they were made, but not quite.

Peter pulled back from their hug and looked at the desk. “Oh. I was trying to remember how to make an origami frog. I taught myself when I was younger but it was the only origami thing I could ever manage to make. I couldn’t even make a paper plane.” He sounded a bit more like his usual self and Tony committed to a choice.

“Alright then, how about we go out into the lounge and we can figure it out together. I’ll make some hot chocolate, you can bring some blankets and I’ll figure out something hard and flat that we can work on to fold.” Hopefully the kid agreed because he didn’t really have a Plan B. To be honest, he didn't really have a Plan A either, he was just going to figure it out as he went.

You’d think Tony would’ve learned the best ways to fall asleep when he found himself kept awake by something by now, but he really didn’t know. Wasn’t warm milk a thing though? He would get the kid some of that in the form of hot chocolate, give him some company he could relax with, sit him somewhere comfortable, maybe put on a movie in the background for some quiet noise. That’d work, right? God, he didn’t know. Rhodey could testify that he’d once passed him a bat and asked him to just knock him out when he was having one of these nights. Did he know ways to fall asleep? Heck yeah. Were they healthy? Heck no. 

If this didn’t work then he’d just stay up with the kid. Or even better, get FRIDAY to find normal ways to make someone fall asleep if they were struggling to. But first, his plan, he was committed to it now.

Peter looked back at him, “oh. I don’t want to keep you up, you should go to sleep. I’m okay.”

Sweet but unnecessary since he’d had years of experience at being awake at ungodly hours. “Trust me, kid, I’m not even that tired and now I’m curious. Let’s go.” Okay, he was a little tired. But he could dig a hole and chuck the tiredness in the hole and bury it until Peter was asleep and hope to God he could find the metaphorical hole again when he wanted to sleep. A solid plan.

Peter nodded then got up and stumbled a bit, Tony wrapping an arm around his shoulders to steady him. Peter quietly thanked him and grabbed some of the paper from his desk and Tony led him towards the lounge, deciding to go back and grab the blankets himself because the kid would probably collapse under the weight of them in this state.

Once in the lounge, he sat Peter down on a couch and headed straight back to the bedroom for blankets before the kid started shivering. He obviously grabbed the Iron Man blanket he’d gotten Peter as a joke (because it was warm, obviously. No other reason at all) and the large, dark green mink blanket because Peter adored the feel of it and it was warm.

He walked back into the lounge and first draped the Iron Man blanket over Peter’s shoulders, tucking it around him, then burrito-wrapped him in the mink blanket because Peter was too tired to protest and it did look kind of cute.

After that, he moved into the kitchen to make two hot chocolates, Peter’s with only milk and his with a mix of hot water and milk because if the warm milk method did work, he didn’t want it to work only on him, leaving Peter awake by himself. 

While he was waiting, he remembered the fold-out tables he had sitting around for when he was having dinner in front of the TV with food that required more care than simply putting it in his lap (for example, soup. Bouncing your knee with soup is a free ticket straight to a hot and painful experience, highly unpleasant and since bouncing his knee was inevitable, even if it was just a twitch, he’d use the table). They’d work perfectly and he had at least two.

He figured it was probably best to grab those first before bringing the hot chocolates in so he took them out of the cupboard and walked into the lounge to set up one in front of Peter, and one right next to it with only a small space inbetween. Peter watched everything without comment. 

After Tony brought in the hot chocolates, he told FRIDAY to turn the TV on to a random Star Wars movie on quiet. Peter knew them so well, they often lulled him off to sleep on movie nights because he didn’t have to focus much, hopefully that’d work here too.

Peter removed two fresh papers from his pile and placed one onto the table in front of him and one in front of Tony.

Tony sat himself down, mildly jealous of Peter’s blankets in the cool air, “alrighty. Where do we start?” Step one, distract Peter from sleep was go. If he started overthinking it, he’d never fall asleep.

“I remember the first part. You have to grab one corner,” Peter grabbed the top right corner, “and move it over to the other side so that it lines up perfectly,” then he moved it to the left side so a triangle was formed as he pressed down to hold the fold.

Tony watched and copied what he did, looking at Peter after to make sure he did it right. Peter took a sip of his hot chocolate and nodded, “yeah. Just like that. Then you unfold that and do the same with the other corner.” This time Peter grabbed the top left corner and brought it over to the right side to form another triangle, pressing down to hold it. He unfolded that as well.

Tony copied him again. Now the paper looked like a rectangle with a square on top, cross going through it.

“Okay, so then you have to fold it like this, here, just watch me.” Peter grabbed each side of the triangle areas and pulled them in, then pulled the top down on top of it so he had a big triangle at the top of his paper and a small rectangular strip at the bottom. Tony copied as best he could but it was definitely rougher than Peter’s.

Peter continued on talking Tony through it (apparently he still remembered more than he thought he did), they were mostly smaller folds and it didn’t take long before he had a whole paper frog, which apparently jumped. Peter had somehow forgotten to mention this. 

He was...a little more excited than he probably should’ve been when he gently pushed his finger against the back of the frog and it shot off the table, going full speed ahead to the other side of the room. Peter snickered as he jumped up and raced after it, proceeding to make it jump for at least the next five minutes. It was surprising, okay.

By the end of it, all Peter’s hot chocolate was gone and his blanket burrito had fallen apart slightly as he worked but he looked relaxed and comfortable which was what Tony was going for. Focusing on the sleep you weren’t getting was only going to make you take longer to actually fall asleep, even Tony knew that.

He grabbed his paper frog off the floor and walked slowly back over to Peter. Step two was making him accidentally fall asleep. He hadn’t really thought through how he was going to get that to happen. Okay so, option one, talk until Peter fell asleep or talk until his voice ran out and he gave up. Option two, direct Peter’s attention to the movie and quietly watch it until Peter fell asleep like usual. Or...maybe he could try option one and then option two if the first doesn’t work. Yeah, he’d do that.

He sat down next to Peter and nudged him, “share the blankets? It’s getting cold.”

Peter wiggled as he struggled to fully unwrap himself from the burrito he’d been in before shuffling and offering about half of it to Tony. Tony pulled Peter into his side and wrapped the blanket around them. “You know, I used to have pet frogs.”

“Really?!”

“Yeah, kiddo. Two of them. They were just mine, I had to take care of them, clean out the tank, catch flies and bugs for them. I absolutely loved it as a kid. Not sure if I’d like it quite so much now.” He probably still would, but he had much less time now.

“What were their names?” Peter looked at him curiously.

“...I was young. We don’t need to focus on that.”

“C’mon, tell me!”

Okay, Peter wasn’t supposed to get this interested, he was supposed to be falling asleep. He needed...more boring story. “Okay, okay. One was called Dem and the other was called Ing.”

“...those are weird names.”

“Yeah...when you put them together you get Dem and Ing. Demanding. I thought it was funny at the time because they required a lot of my time.”

“That’s a terrible idea.” Peter sounded entirely unimpressed.

“I’m well aware now.”

“Tell me about them.” Perfect. He’d drone on about them until Peter fell asleep. He could totally talk about frogs for ages.

“Well, I think first of all we should establish that Dem ate Ing after death.”

Peter pulled back, “what the fuck?”

“Language. Anyway, I guess frogs do that sometimes? I was away for a week and I’d left them with a container of fly eggs, I think, that they fed on as they hatched, which was normally fine, but I guess Ing passed away from old age and Dem decided they were better than flies? It was a little concerning. I thought Ing had just escaped somehow but no...definitely eaten, saw some of the remains.” He pulled Peter back into his side.

Time to steer the conversation into more extensive stories. “One time Dem escaped from the tank she was kept in. My parents were...unhappy.” That was the understatement of the century. But he wasn’t about to get into that.

“I was cleaning their tank out and to do that, I had to move them both to a smaller tank, usually just by picking them up because they were quite small and I always liked the feel of them.” Tony had received some weird reactions to saying that, but frogs didn’t actually feel that weird.

“Except, this time Dem was quite slippery and escaped from my grasp, hopping away to hide. I honestly thought I was never going to see her again, but then one day she just appeared in front of me! Honestly might have been the luckiest moment of my life. I guess she didn’t like the house much.”

As Tony continued, he noticed Peter’s breathing evening out as he slowly started to lean more weight on Tony as he fell asleep. The last thing Tony remembered was talking about how his parents never let him have another pet after that before he too, joined Peter in sleep, which was where Pepper found them the next morning as she returned from a trip. 

She took a picture and Tony had it framed later (only after complaining about her taking the photo, of course).

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Enjoy ur day or I mean, enjoy your night depending on what time zone you're in. Looks like it's gonna be a warm sunny summer's day here, rlly hope the south island gets some of that weather and the flooding eases off though.
> 
> also yes this story is based off me, i taught myself how to make origami frogs as a kid (and fascinated my classmates) but i could never manage to make anything else. i can't even make paper airplanes. BUT. i did make an origami bat ONCE, this year. which is pretty rad. that was a breakthrough. finally. years later. and i had frogs. i don't know why i gave tony frogs. it just happened as i was writing. it's not that weird ok. frogs are cool. Lucy did eat Tom though. I think it was after death. I hope anyway. Not so fond of the idea of Lucy eating Tom alive. yes i know terrible names but i was LITTLE KID when I named them, okay.
> 
> tumblr is fictional-worlds-are-exquisite


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